Homeland security challenges to dominate Sunday talk shows
Efforts by Congress to remove protections for undocumented immigrants living in the United States and threats posed by Islamist terrorists are likely to dominate discussion during the Sunday talk shows.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson will be on the five main shows to talk about how the Obama administration is dealing with both issues.
The House passed a $40 billion Homeland Security spending bill last month that would fund the agency through the end of the 2015 fiscal year (Sept. 30) but undoes the president's executive order providing legal protection for an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants, including children.
The legislation is hung up in the GOP-controlled Senate, where Republicans lack the votes to quash a filibuster led by Democrats. Funding for the agency expires at the end of the month unless a spending bill is passed and signed by the president. Without an extension, the agency would face a partial shutdown.
Complicating matters is a ruling this week by a federal judge in Texas blocking President Obama's immigration order that is at the heart of the congressional spending dispute. The Obama administration plans to appeal the ruling.
Johnson and other administration officials as well as independent experts will discuss the threat that Islamist extremists could pose to the U.S. and what steps the administration should take to combat their influence overseas.
Here's the Sunday lineup:
• ABC's This Week will delve into the immigration order and its aftermath with Johnson. The show will feature two senators considering a bid for the White House in 2016: Vermont independent Bernie Sanders and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. In a nod to Black History Month, writers Shelby Steele and Ta-Nehisi Coates will debate how best to overcome the country's troubled racial past. There's also the regular roundtable of pundits debating the week's politics: The New York Times national political reporter Amy Chozick, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., Time political columnist Joe Klein and ABC News contributor and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.
• CBS' Face the Nation will be hosting Johnson to discuss immigration and threats posed by foreign terrorists to the nation. The show will feature the man who brought the lawsuit against the immigration order: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who took office last month. The show has assembled a team of experts to discuss the challenge facing the world in fighting terrorism: Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, David Ignatius of The Washington Post, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official who heads the Center for New American Security, and Farah Pandith, the State Department's former Special Representative to Muslim Communities. David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama, will make an appearance to talk about his new book: Believer: My Forty Years in Politics. The book details his political career, including his experiences with a young Barack Obama in Chicago.
• NBC's Meet the Press will ask Johnson what a partial shutdown of the agency will mean for the security of the U.S. There's also a segment on the future of voting rights in the country. Two years after the Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act, a bipartisan group in Congress has sponsored a new measure to protect voters against discrimination. Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, and Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pa., will discuss the issue. The show will feature a political panel to discuss the news of the week. The panel includes: Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary; Michael Gerson, columnist for The Washington Post; Nia-Malika Henderson, national political reporter for TheWashington Post; and Amy Walter, national editor for the non-partisan Cook Political Report.
• Fox News Sunday will talk with Johnson about the congressional debate over the president's immigration order and how the Homeland Security secretary is trying to persuade lawmakers on Capitol Hill to strike a deal before funding runs out. The show will feature two experts — former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden and retired Army general Jack Keane — to weigh in on ways of countering violent extremism in the Middle East. In addition, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will discuss several topics, including his top priorities for Indiana, his thoughts as a former member of Congress on the Homeland Security funding fight and the president's foreign policy, and whether he'll run for president in 2016. Pence is among a number of governors convening in Washington this weekend to talk about challenges facing states.
• CNN's State of the Union is featuring an exclusive interview with Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, who is said to be mulling a bid for president in 2016. He has fueled speculation with his tour of the country to discuss his record as governor and promote a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. A former chairman of the House Budget Committee in Congress, Kasich now governs a state considered key to winning the White House. The show will interview Johnson about prospects that Congress will resolve the partisan dispute over Homeland Security funding. Among other guests will be Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy secretary of Defense under George W. Bush and a key architect of the Iraq War. Wolfowitz, who is among the defense experts whom former Florida governor Jeb Bush is consulting as he mulls his own presidential bid, will discuss the fight for Iraq a decade later and the role of radical Islam. And former GOP governors George Pataki of New York and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania will weigh in on Rudy Giuliani's remarks this week that President Obama doesn't love the country.